


Prerequisites to Modern Movement

by Bequeathment_Sperm



Series: Divergence Theory [4]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Does this count as Fluff already?, Dreamatorium, Eventual Romance, F/M, Gen, POV Multiple, the 5 timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:42:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26492848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bequeathment_Sperm/pseuds/Bequeathment_Sperm
Summary: Timeline 05 Post-S03E05: After the Halloween Spook-Tacular, Annie Edison crashes in casa Trobed. After her departure, Troy and Abed proceed to discuss the changes needed to be made to their room layout due to her deciding to move in.
Relationships: Annie Edison/Abed Nadir, Troy Barnes & Abed Nadir, Troy Barnes/Britta Perry
Series: Divergence Theory [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1849432
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	Prerequisites to Modern Movement

**Author's Note:**

> Previously on Divergency Theory:  
> \- Abed invites Annie to stay the night so she wouldn't have to go home early to beat the midnight pervert rush in Dildopolis.  
> \- Due to Jeff being late to the Spook-Tacular Pre-Party, Britta asks for Troy's help instead.  
> \- Pierce gifted Troy a gift certificate for a Drum Kit, as well as a picture of LeVar Burton

**-Abed-**  
Annie gasps loudly in a state of apparent panic when the intercom buzzes loudly in the background. Jeff turns to her, “Annie, it’s just the pizza.”

“We can’t buzz him up. Someone has to go down,” he says to the group as the rest of his friends begin to look around in vain for volunteers. Everyone then proceeds to point at their noses to claim ‘not it’. With an apparent six-way draw to not get the pizza, because Abed notes he touched his nose before anyone else even got anywhere close to their faces, Jeff Winger proposes an alternative, “Uh. Okay. Starting on my left with one, your number comes up, you go.”

“Just so you know, Jeff. You are now creating six different timelines,” Abed claims as he considers the possibility of catching the dice to send Jeff off to his deserved fate. This game was rigged, after all, considering there were seven of them and only six sides. Still, the prospect of adding a little unpredictability to their lives was good on occasion – for without uncertainty like that, life would be too certain. After making his decision, he took some time to ponder what the six other Abeds would do.

“Of course I am, Abed,” Jeff sarcastically agrees with him as he tosses the die. For a moment, time freezes – then he catches the die.

_Wait. That didn’t happen. I could’ve sworn I let that die roll and it came out a ‘Five’. This must be a dream, then. Well, might as well let it play itself out. It would be good to get a different perspective of how things could have turned out._

“I don’t think you should. Chaos already dominates enough of our lives. The universe is an endless raging sea of randomness. Our job isn’t to fight it, but to weather it together, on the raft of life. A raft held together by those few rare, beautiful things that we know to be predictable,” Dream Abed explains. Dream Britta chimes in to attempt to bridge his metaphor. But fails horribly, “Ropes? Vines? Let him finish.”

_I give the speech in this episode? Nice. Although Britta did say something pretty similar to this last night. Man, the writers must be pretty lazy reusing content like that._

“Us,” he exclaims then goes on to explain to them Jeff’s plan, which then forces the aforementioned friend to become the designated pizza-getter. He acts like it doesn’t matter, _spoiler alert, it very likely does_ , as Britta plays ‘Roxanne’ on their Ipod. Jeff then gets smacked on the head as he stands up. _Okay, I didn’t catch that happening. Maybe that ceiling fan is a hazard. Should probably get that removed soon._

When Jeff is away, they dance briefly to the music before Dream Annie shares with them that she really loves their place. Dream Abed then invites her to move in with them. _Cool. She moves in with us there too. Wait, what’s that smell? That’s not pie. Pancakes?_

With eyes closed, he wills time to flow backwards until the point wherein Jeff tosses the die, and he simply lets it roll. Five. Abed goes to get the pizza, despite clearly being the only one with a legitimate claim not to go down. When he returns, everyone is cold. The housewarming is short-lived. One by one, they leave. Annie forgets her cardigan which Jeff takes with him, possibly to make amends for whatever seemed to happen during that day – they didn’t seem to be on good terms when she departed.

After everyone was gone, he and Troy had to deal with the fallout, and the Norwegian Troll in the middle of the table. Burned. They burned it. Fast-forward a week later, and here they were. After a night of six short spooky stories, and an awesome vampire/werewolf epic by Annie, followed by the Spook-tacular party, they then headed home with Annie who stayed the night in casa Trobed, or soon to be Trobedison, so she wouldn’t have to risk going home to Dildopolis past midnight. And now he was smelling pancakes.

Today’s plan was simple. Troy and Abed get out of bed at around 8:45AM, give or take around 8 minutes – their sleeping habits haven’t totally synced in yet, but it was getting there. He would make buttered noodles for three people because Annie was sleeping over, while Troy prepared the orange-flavored Kool-aid. Annie then leaves for her 10:00AM Hospital Administration 301 class. Then when she goes, Troy and himself would discuss all pending layout changes for the apartment, namely the addition of a musical instrument and their new roommate. Finally, they’d top the morning off with Riverboat Gamblers versus dinosaurs. Simple. Except those plans seem completely foreign to him now. And it’s entirely because of the smell of pancakes that he can’t get out of his brain.

Abed Nadir opened his eyes and sat up from the top bunk of his bed before climbing down. His roommate, Troy Barnes lay asleep in his bed, clearly still out due to last night’s festivities. He checks the clock – 8:32AM. _Strange. I’m up a lot earlier today than usual, way beyond the acceptable deviation mark. And that’s even with us going to bed way past midnight. Perhaps it’s the smell of pancakes? Yes, definitely the pancakes._

He notes his change in behavior as an understandable anomaly due to the scent of delicious pancakes and leaves it be. _Troy’s still asleep, I probably shouldn’t wake him – by my estimates, he should be up at around 8:53AM at the latest anyway. I think I can handle entertaining Annie by myself until then._ Their sleeping patterns should regularize again in a couple days, he figured. Sure, it bugged him because he knew he was a bit of a control freak – heck, seeing the winding back of clocks during daylight savings confused him to no end, but Abed shouldn’t wake Troy. And he shouldn’t go back to bed. After all, it would be incredibly rude to leave their guest alone.

“Good morning, Abed,” Annie greets him with a smile as he steps out of his bedroom and into the hallway.

“Morning, Annie. Why are you in our kitchen?” Abed asks her plainly.

“I’m making pancakes. I figured I’d thank you guys for letting me stay the night… And for inviting me to live here with you,” she replies cheerfully. At first, he wants to object to the twist that she’s thrown at him so early in the morning. That it promises to flip his entire assumed day out of a loop. And that to top it off, she’s touching their stuff without asking, much like Shirley did last week when she arrived to do her baking at three. But that was last week, that was Shirley and she was making pies; this was this week, this is Annie and she is making pancakes. And he loves pancakes.

He also loves breakfast. Abed walks over to the countertop to check how it is she’s doing. He begins to salivate to the point that he needs to visually swallow. _Okay, maybe one little change wouldn’t be so bad. Surprises can be good on occasion. I did let Jeff roll the dice. Dice-catcher Abed would probably be objecting right now. But that’s him. And after all, what would movies and TV be like without twists. Bland, predictable and tasteless._ Annie cuts a piece off of a pancake in the pan, pours some syrup over it and offers it to him, “Could you try this for me? I’m not sure if I’m doing this right. I’m used to making them for myself, but I’d like to be sure if it’s good enough to serve to other people.”

_Fluffy, warm with just the right amount of sweetness._

“It’s perfect,” he smiles.

“I’m glad. Let me just finish this up and I’ll join you at the table,” Annie smiles back at him before she returns to her business. With Troy not up yet, and breakfast nearly prepared, Abed moves to the cupboard and pulls out the powdered juice.

“I’m going to make some Kool-Aid, Annie. You want some?” he asks her as he goes to the refrigerator to get the water. She, however, shakes her head before requesting for an alternative. “None for me, thanks. Actually, do you happen to have some orange juice?”

Abed pauses for a moment and eyes her curiously before finding himself nodding along to her suggestion. _Kool-Aid with pancakes wouldn’t match up right. With buttered noodles, sure. But not pancakes._ He grabs a carton of Orange juice and proceeds to fill a glass pitcher for them to share before sitting down to join her on the table.

“Did you sleep alright last night?” he asks her, pouring some orange juice into her glass. _Note to self. Buy apples and oranges during the next grocery trip. Troy likes them freshly squeezed. I’m sure Annie would too._

“It was great. I had no idea sleeping on a couch could be so comfortable! I mean, I guess part of it was because I didn’t need to wake up every couple minutes to make sure my door wasn’t being unlocked but, yes, sleep was good,” she says happily as she takes a bite into her own stack of pancakes.

“Cool. Cool, cool, cool,” Abed replies as he stares at her. His friend. His really good friend. It was odd. Odd that Troy wasn’t up yet. But it was also equally odd that he seemed to genuinely be enjoying himself more than he expected himself to. He reminisced to season one when she first told him that they were really good friends, and he referenced the show ‘Friends’ to parallel her statement.

Chandler and Phoebe never really had stories together. But this wasn’t Friends. I mean, sure they were all friends, but the study group was really more of a Community than just friends. And Annie and Abed weren’t really Chandler and Phoebe anymore. They were… Well, Annie and Abed. And yes, they didn’t really have stories together either, but that didn’t mean that it needed to stay that way. Perhaps in that timeline where Abed caught the dice, sure. But here, he let it roll.

Chaos dominates everyone’s lives. But sometimes, a little bit of chaos isn’t so bad – he was pretty sure die-catching Abed wasn’t having this good a breakfast today. _Pancakes every now and then instead of buttered noodles?_ Abed cuts a piece of fluff off and puts it into his mouth with a smile. _I could get used to this._

**-Troy-  
**“Abed?” he mentions groggily, eyes closed as his brain’s brain finally wakes up. Silence. Troy calls out once more, with a bit more volume this time but still nothing.

With the lack of any form of answer, Troy Barnes rolls out of the bottom bunk of their bed and checks out the top. Empty. And when he turns around, that’s when he notices it – the sweet smell of breakfast food filling the air. _Dope. Breakfast time already?_

Before stepping out to the hallway, Troy checks his phone: 8:58AM and one new message. _Woops. I totally overslept. Not by much, but definitely by enough for Abed to notice._ Maybe that’s why he’s outside already? _Pretty cool though that he let me sleep in._

As he walks towards the door, he opens the one unread message.

_Thanks again for everything last night. Going through that Psych eval would’ve been really hard without your help. I really appreciated it all. Especially the time we spent together in the scanning room. See you soon?_

When they parted ways after the party, he sent everyone a message on their group chat to just chime in when they got home. One by one, everyone chimed in that they got home alright. It wasn’t until Britta messaged that she managed to get home okay that he decided to go to sleep. He didn’t expect a private message, though. That was pretty cool. Troy was all smiles as he sent her a reply. 

_Anytime Britta. It was nice to hang out like that. We should do it again sometime. See you soon._

As he stepped out of the hallway, he hears Annie’s voice, and remembers that she went home with them to crash. Suddenly, Troy’s attire of white T-Shirt and Boxers weren’t appropriate house-wear anymore. After doubling back to put on some proper clothes that would be inappropriate with the lady people around, he steps back outside.

“What smells awesome?” he asks the room as he turns around the corner towards the kitchen.

“I made pancakes. We saved you some,” Annie replies to him with a smile. Troy’s eyes widen in surprise and he quickly glances towards Abed in surprise.

“Abed, don’t we normally have buttered noodles on Tuesday mornings?” Troy asks him curiously.

“We’re having pancakes,” was Abed’s reply, quick, final and without a comically large, fake smile on his face.

“Riiight…” Troy replies as he nods back towards Abed and pours himself a glass of juice before taking a sip. The tartiness of ACTUAL juice and not powdered Orange-flavored Kool-Aid shocks him enough to cough visibly.

“We also decided on Orange juice. Sorry about that,” Abed apologizes before pointing towards the counter-top, “There’s still Kool-aid powder by the pitcher.”

Troy eyes him suspiciously, “Are you alright, buddy?”

“Never better.”

“Okay then…” Troy trails off as he heads to prepare a glass of non-juice juice for himself. Over the past twelve hours, there have been a LOT of changes that were made without his input and it was starting to bug him a bit. Inviting Annie to live with them. The Breakfast Food. AND the Kool-Aid? And sure, this was half Abed’s place, but it was his half too. Heck, it was Troy’s idea to move in, just the two of them. And now without even a conversation between the two of them, Casa Trobed was going to become Casa Trobedison.

While lost in thought, he accidentally spills the Kool-Aid over his shirt, “Agh, butts. This is going to stain.”

“Quick, grab the blue Kool-Aid. Maybe the opposite color will fix it,” Abed shouts out as he rushes towards his friends aid, handing him the Blue Raspberry flavor.

“Wait. Stop that,” Annie steps in between them, and hands Troy some vinegar, “Mix that in with some dishwashing detergent and warm water and it’ll get that stain right out.”

Troy takes the bottle from Annie and nods at her appreciatively. _Okay, maybe having her here does have its perks. Maybe she can tell us where the water goes in the Iron. And what the Iron is for._

After going back to the room yet again to change his clothes, he walks in on a conversation about last night’s Halloween Spook-tacular.

“I still can’t believe how bad that party was,” Annie exclaimed while laughing.

“Yeah… I mean, it was pretty cool that the lights kept flickering on and off for a Halloween motif, but it probably would’ve been better if they split that up from the sound system,” Abed brings up.

“Yeah. Hearing every OTHER word in a song is so hard to dance to,” Troy joins in, “And the power cutting off made it take AGES to cook the Taco meat.”

“I’m actually surprised it bombed that hard. The Dean normally doesn’t mess these things up this badly. Not for dances, at least,” Annie brings up.

“Yeah. And he seemed way more bummed than when Britta and I saw him last,” Troy says, to which Annie replies quickly, “It’s definitely because we didn’t come back with Jeff.”

“Fair,” Troy nods along to her statement before Abed asks him a question, “I think I missed something when I got to the party with Annie last night. Shirley and Britta seemed to be fighting again. Didn’t that get resolved already?”

“Pierce told Shirley that she smoked something before Ben’s baptism, so Britta was pretty bummed that her friendship with Shirley took another hit.” Troy replied before Abed asks a second question that he had been totally unprepared to answer, “Oh, was that why you were hanging out with Britta all night?”

“Yes..?” Troy replies hesitantly, unsure of his own answer himself. _Why was I with Britta the whole night? Was it because we were working together earlier that night? Or was it something even before that. I did look for her during the Ecology assignment after all. Now that I’m thinking about it, didn’t Abed walk in with Annie that night?_

As Troy’s train of thought drifts off, Abed re-rails the previous conversation, “Cool. So are you going to Pierce’s party this weekend?”

“Oh my god, yes! I can’t believe he invited the six of us and the dean to go to his mansion just to 'show him that he could throw a better party than he could,” Annie replied, “I’m really curious how it looks like. I’ve never been to a mansion before.”

“It’s pretty dope. But also, it isn’t. It’s hard to explain,” Troy starts, “I mean… It’s great. But… half the rooms are either extremely weird and/or racist.”

“I’m more interested in filming everyone going into another venue off-campus. Although it does seem weird that we’re doing house reveals only two weeks apart from each other. I suppose the show needs to have more familiar venues the audience can relate to when we all eventually graduate,” Abed claims meta-ly as Troy and Annie nod at him before she checks her phone, “Oh, shoot! It’s already past 9:20? Sorry, but I’ve got to go! I’ve got class soon.”

Troy prepares to say goodbye but Abed surprisingly stops her, “Would you care to stay a bit longer? We’re only a couple blocks from Greendale so you’ll be able to make it there no problem. And if you’re moving in with us, you should really get a tour of the whole place. Just so you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

_Weird. Was Abed always this… welcoming with guests? I guess we did read that book about how to be the perfect party hosts._

**-Annie-**  
After re-touring the bathroom and kitchen, then showing her their communal bedroom, Abed leads Annie towards the final room of the house. He opens the door and steps right inside, revealing a room painted dark green, and several unused rolls of yellow tape on the floor. _What is this place?_ Almost as if he read her mind, Abed goes on to explain.

“This is a space we reserved for virtual adventures. Like a playroom, but only works in our minds. This is the Dreamatorium,” Abed states with his arms spread out, “As you can see, it’s still under construction, but assuming the pending alterations with regards to developments last night, there may need to be some changes to the floor plans of this place.”

She squealed with joy and nodded along to Abed. The room was perfect. Sure, the paint needed to be changed to pink, and she needed to remove the boarding from the window to let in some sunlight, but this was so much better than her current place. It was closer to school so she’d be able to save on gas, and wake up a bit later. Heck, she could even walk and she’d still be able to get there earlier than when she had to drive from Dildopolis. And this place was infinitely safer. Unable to control herself, she gives Abed a tight hug, “This room is WONDERFUL.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty great,” Troy agrees from the side. Before she breaks her hug with Abed, he gives her a delayed hug combined with some sort of back pat. _Was he waiting for a social cue?_ They nod at each other before she gives Troy a hug of his own before they walked her towards the door.

“I am so excited to move in with you guys. When my class is over, I’ll give my landlord my 2-week notice. See you soon… Roomies,” she says with an unending smile before waving goodbye and stepping outside.

They wave back at her, sporting with those goofy smiles that they used to welcome her in last week. _That was pretty sweet of them for giving up their playroom just so that I could move in with them._ _Casa Trobedison, here I come._

**-Troy-  
**After they say goodbye to Annie, Abed motions towards their future Dreamatorium, “You ready to discuss changes to the Apartment, Troy?”

“Yeah… But, could I just have a second before we start?” he asks his friend before they make it to the door. Abed turns around, tilts his head curiously and nods, “Sure. What do you want to talk about?”

“Are you… Alright?” Troy begins his questioning.

“I think so. Why do you ask?” Abed replies.

“Well, it’s just... You’ve been acting kind of weird today.”

“I’m weird everyday. It’s kind of my thing,” _Okay, maybe the word ‘weird’ was the wrong word._

“Like different weird.”

“What do you mean?”

“Pancakes and orange juice?” Troy points towards the kitchen, bringing up their scheduling changes as he tries to ease into his main question. His friend’s answer takes him aback completely as Abed nods at him with a smile, “Yeah, it was good, right?”

“What happened to the Buttered Noodles and Kool-Aid? Wasn’t that our Tuesday morning snack? Didn’t you and I pick out breakfast food schedules so we wouldn’t have to randomly go to the grocery when we’d run out of something before we knew we’d run out?” Troy objects. It was strange seeing his friend change routines like this, considering how hard Abed had pushed for Buttered Noodles Tuesdays.

“Well, Annie got up before I did and she was already making food. I thought social etiquette implied if someone started making food, we shouldn’t object and just roll with it. Remember? We had that talk with Shirley last night with the fake pizza and her pies,” Abed countered. He did have a point, though. That Shirley sermon was really long. Plus, changing food mid-way would have been wasteful. And it wasn’t like the pancakes didn’t taste great.

“I know, I know. But… even the Kool-aid?” he asks, grasping at straws.

“Didn’t pair well. I figured if breakfast was already different and if beverages were part of breakfast, switching that up too would be fine.”

“I guess…” Troy trails off with a sigh. After a short pause, Abed restarts the conversation, “Wait, am I missing something here? Are you upset?”

He was upset. But Troy didn’t want to say that’s how he felt. But also, friends didn’t lie to each other. They made a deal. October 15th, 2009. He and Abed had that date memorized. So instead of flat-out admitting that something was bugging him, Troy just decided to ask him the question that had been the start of it all, “Why did you invite Annie to live with us?”

“Annie’s our friend,” Abed replies quickly, and they proceed to have a rapid, back and forth conversation from there.

“I know that. But what if let’s say… I wanted to invite Britta to live with us instead?”

“But why? Britta’s neither in danger, or has expressed an interest in living here. Has she?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the point?”

“I was just giving you an example.”

“Were you?” Abed eyes him suspiciously. Troy hesitates for a moment before replying, “Yeah…”

 _Wait, was that a lie?_ Before Troy could dwell on the thought any further, the rapid exchanges start up again.

“You heard Annie’s story… The place she was living at seemed pretty dangerous. Would you have not offered her a place to stay?”

“I would.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I would’ve at least liked to be talked to about it before you made the call alone.”

“Even if I knew what you’d say?”

“Yes.”

“But why? Doing it this way would save time.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is the point?”

Troy breathed in deeply and rubbed his temple before answering.

“I just… I want to be more involved, okay? I don’t want to feel like I don’t have a say, because this is my place too,” Troy shares his concern.

After a long, silent pause, Abed nods back at him, “Alright, I understand.”

“Thanks, buddy. That’s all I ask. Do you want to get started?” Troy asks with a smile.

“Yep,” Abed nods again, before offering his hand out for a shake. One secret handshake later, Abed steps into the Dreamatorium-in-the-making, ready to deliberate on the future of their apartment. Troy stays back for a moment, remembering an old conversation that he had with Abed during the Tranny Dance.

_You should live with someone who you like but whose friendship wouldn’t be altered by constant irritation. If you and I move in, we jump the shark._

It took him awhile, to understand what Abed meant by jumping the shark. But it came to him eventually – that it would all be downhill from there. And truth be told, he was scared of that too, but there was no way their fourth year of Greendale was going to be that bad, would it?

Abed’s fear of peaking too soon, or changing the kind of friendship that they had together was what held them back from moving in with each other for a year. And after a year of hanging out with Troy, Abed probably was ready to admit that their best-friendship wouldn’t get changed too much by whatever it was that came their way.

But what Troy found strange was that Abed invited Annie without a second thought. Because to him, that meant one of two things: either Abed believed that his relationship with Annie wouldn’t change, or that Abed, intentionally or not, wanted it to.

**-Abed-**  
“Okay then. Let’s begin,” he says to Troy as he initiates the Dreamatorium to take form by using a portable-Imaginarium manipulation device he built to appear like an ordinary cardboard box with fake buttons drawn on it. Abed presses a big red button, and suddenly, it starts. They’re no longer in Apartment 303, room codenamed AWESOME – a formal court hall, flying a kangaroo flag materializes and two friends stand opposite sides from one another dressed in fancy old timey wigs and coats.

“Mister Barnes. For the sake of organization, I propose that we proceed with these alterations to project: AWESOME in alphabetical order. Do you accept my proposal?” Mister Nadir asks him politely.

“I concur, Mister Nadir. That would totally be most agreeable,” Mister Barnes bows at him before bridging onto the task at hand, “So… The first order of business would be…”

The two of them say two opposing words at the exact same time.

“Annie.”

“Drum kit.”

A pause. Mister Barnes seems to be taken aback, likely due to his proposal taking second seating to the obvious primary directive. Expecting a counter-argument, he prepares to see what his colleague has in mind.

“Mister Nadir, I don’t believe we should be using miss Edison’s first name in this situation. It would be proper to use her last name, wouldn’t you agree?” Mister Barnes suggests.

A good counter-proposal. But one he had readily anticipated, “That is a fair point, Mister Barnes. But in that situation, wouldn’t we also refer to said ‘Drum Kit’ with its own proper name and branding? Pray tell, which brand are you looking at purchasing? Gretsch? Ludwig, Mapex, Pearl, Sonor, or Yamaha?”

The gentleman from across the room is taken aback before he proposes an alternative to the floor.

“Perhaps I was a tad bit too hasty. Maybe it would be best to discuss things using their classification instead. That would equate ‘Drum Kit’ to ‘roommate’, yes?” Mister Barnes attempts with a different angle.

“Technically, if we’re using general classifications, ‘Drum Kit’ would fall under ‘musical instrument’, don’t you think?” he questions his friend, to which he receives a nod.

“So it would now be ‘musical instrument’ into ‘roommate’ then, correct?” Mister Barnes says with a smile that stumps Mister Nadir.

Another pause. He did not expect to lose this argument. Surely, if push came to shove, there were other angles he could explore. Such as claiming that the importance of deciding the placement of a roommate was more important than deciding where to place those drums. Or that Annie’s presence had already been confirmed, whereas the decision of acquiring said drum kit was still up in the air. But he didn’t want to pursue those options. They would grant him victory, albeit using methods that he’d prefer not to utilize. He had already committed to the alphabetical bit, and this was a kangaroo court after all, he notes as a troop of Kangaroos sat idly by as judge and jury to their ongoing debate. As he stares at them all in the jury box, cooped up together, with the judge kangaroo alone in a different box, that’s when it lands upon him; the perfect argument.

“Why would we be using the term ‘roommate’? We are roommates, Mister Barnes,” he says, pointing towards himself, then to his bunkmate.

“But she is not a roommate. As wonderful as it sounds, I highly doubt triple-bunk-beds would be feasible in our abode. No, my friend. She would be a ‘housemate’,” Mister Nadir proclaims with a smile. Technically correct. The best kind of correct.

After a third pause, Mister Barnes finally concedes the floor.

“Dang. You got me. Annie it is then. That was pretty fun,” Troy exclaims as the courtroom fades from vision. Abed nodded to him, before the environment blurred out of existence, and transitioned once more.

**-Troy-**  
“Yo Abed. How we gonna do this? These floor plans don’t make no sense,” builder Troy pulls out the plans with the Apartment 303 layout, “At this rate, I don’t think we’ve got space for the Dreamatorium.”

“Sorry, but the Dreamatorium is non-negotiable,” planner Abed shakes his head in disagreement. It was his vision, after all. And to someone who liked being in control of the situation, the primary reason why they even considered choosing a plot of apartment-land with two-easily-divisible zones was to construct the Dreamatorium.

“Yeah, I know that. But how do you think we’re gonna be able to get this to work?” Troy asks while staring at the plans, trying to make sense out of it all.

“Well, the two of us can use this one partition of land,” Abed says, pointing at the bigger plot, before pointing at the smaller zone, “And the lady can get the other.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been sayin’ to you, sir. Where’s the Dreamatorium gonna go? There’s just two rooms in here,” Troy stares at the planner who seems to have his eyes glued at the parchment, unable to speak, “There are three building requirements, sir… But only two plots.”

His friend’s eye twitches wildly. Likely from having put too much into his own plate. The idea of setting up a Dreamatorium was Abed’s idea. But so was offering this Edison broad a plot of land that they’d help construct. Troy hated seeing his friend this way; Abed seemed to be melting down, most likely because he’d never had to decide between two of his own proposals in the past. But before a likely impending crackdown occurred, Troy brain births an idea. Quickly, he reaches for an imaginary sharpie, and draws a line across a communal, but previously non-buildable land to create a third zone for construction.

“How ‘bout that? Three zones now. One for each purpose. That works, yeah?” Troy exclaims to his friend who, after catching a glimpse of it, hugs him extremely tightly, “That was genius. Let’s get to work right away.”

Troy nods at him, and begins to draw up a proper proposal to keep the new location safe and secure, “You reckon we could build up a protective layer here? Turn it into some sort of fort?”

“Great idea!” planner Abed exclaims excitedly.

“So… Uh… Since this room is pretty much done anyway, we gotta choose between the other two. Which one of us gets which room, though?” Troy asks his building partner a hard question. If he had to be honest, he didn’t mind either their existing room or the new proposed hallway extension. Almost to the point that he wondered if it would just be easier to have Annie choose. _Would that be sexist, though?_

After some thought, Abed proposes an idea, “Well… There are two of us, so we should probably get the plot with the bigger cut. Also, she’s already experienced living in that location. She slept there last night and she said to us herself that it was very comfortable. And besides, statistically, women go to bathrooms more than men do, so she’ll probably appreciate the one closest to outdoor plumbing.”

“Well that logic is… awesome. IT’S AWESOME. She’s gonna love it I’m sure. Let’s start on the fort today so by the time the lady moves in, it’ll be prepped and ready,” Troy agrees with a smile.

“And what’s best about it is that she’s already familiar with the rules from last year when she visited our other fort project, Fluffytown,” Abed states before trailing off to give Troy time to join in on the rules.

“No smoking, no farting, no Pillowfighting,” they say in unison.

“Yeah… But I feel like we’re missing something here…” Troy ponders for a moment before Abed joins him in thought. Finally, it comes to him, “I’ve got it! We should totally throw her a welcome performance!”

_There’s got to be something here… Maybe a story about a woodsman and a unicorn?_

“Nice. How about a story featuring a Woodsman and a Unicorn?” Abed suggests to Troy whose eyes widen visibly in surprise, “Get out of my brain.”

**-Abed-**  
“Okay, sorry, but can we power down the Dreamatorium for this one?” Abed asks his friend.

“Yeah, sure. Whats up, man? You getting tired? I know it takes a lot out of you to run this thing,” Troy inquires about his state. Abed shakes his head as the backdrop of a rock and roll concert dissipates back into a plain green room.

It isn’t that he was tired. It’s that he was scared. Scared of the fact that he’s certain the drum kit would drive him insane; whenever he’d hear someone chew gum, it was already was enough to make his skull vibrate and want to punch people. What more a drum kit in his own home? Sure, he was ready to have this conversation with his friend, but he would need more of his brain capacity to take it all in.

“I’m… worried. That a drum kit may be extremely hazardous to this venue… And my sanity. The volume and reverberations that it would cause worry me,” Abed admits to his friend.

“Look, I know you’ve got that thing about your brain rattling in your mind-container when people chew gum so I knew this was kind of a long shot. If you’re not alright with me getting one, I won’t, but could I at least pitch what I’ve got in mind?” Troy offers. It was nice to know that his best friend thought of these things so that he didn’t have to. It would’ve been easier for Abed to just say no to the prospect. Part of him wanted to. But they did just have that conversation about Troy wanting to be more involved in all house decision-making matters.

Flat-out saying yes to a Drum Kit? Nope. But talking about MAYBE getting a Drum Kit? That, he could do, so he nods along.

“Alright, so… Get this. How about we soup up one of the rooms by soundproofing it and that’s where we’d put the Drumkit? That way, you won’t really have to hear it.”

“Interesting proposal. Which room, though?” Abed replies, seeing the noise cancelling as a solution to one of the two primary issues with the kit. The location, on the other hand, was equally as important.

“What about the Dreamatorium?” Troy suggests to him to which Abed shakes his head violently.

“Nope. Absolutely not. The Dreamatorium is non-negotiable. Check our lease and agreement,” he brings up defensively. Just the thought of having that Drum kit in the same room where they played imaginary rockstars pulled him into an ironic sinkhole. A place where Air guitars and Air Drums existed when an actual drum was in the room? He knew that at times, he had one foot out of reality, but even that was a bit ridiculous. That was, however, until Troy brought up something… intriguing, “Yeah. I know that. But what if we could make the Dreamatorium… more awesome?”

“I’m listening,” he replied, genuinely curious at how Troy could possibly spin this into something that he’d consider backing, much less consider as an upgrade.

“Alright. Let’s say we SWAP our current room and the Dreamatorium room. And then we soundproof the NEW Dreamatorium. That way, it’d be big enough for a Drum Kit. And I promise that I’ll ONLY use it when we’re not playing. This way, we’d have more space for fun, and we wouldn’t have to always stay in place when we do running scenes,” Troy brings up.

_Fair point. More floor space would allow us to run around. Plus it would let Troy stay further apart from me at times when he’d need to. That would probably help when we set up that fork-jousting tournament next week. And it would help Troy distance himself whenever we pretend that there were rats, centipedes, or tarantulas in the room. Although, those bits don’t really happen too often. He’s still getting over that time when he imagined that he was stuck in the middle of a lake. The benefits won’t pay off too often._

“I mean, I don’t really get how this upgrades the Dreamatorium to warrant sacrificing around 20% of our living space. Space isn’t really a big plus, I mean I’m pretty sure if push came to shove, I could actually power this thing from a cardboard box and it would still be fully functional. So it only really benefits the Drum Kit,” Abed explains, shooting down Troy’s proposal.

“I think you’re missing the point. Soundproofed Dreamatorium? We can be as loud as we want in there and Rick, our landlord won’t be able to hear a thing,” Troy counters with a wide grin. _Ooh. I hadn’t thought about that._ Abed’s eyes widen and suddenly, a smile pops onto his face, matching Troy’s, “Okay, that I can get behind.”

“Nice.”

“One question though: how do we get the money? And don’t say experiments. The last time we did that, you cried about wanting butt stuff and I stayed locked in a room for 26 hours. That’s around $2.31 an hour. It was NOT worth it,” he brings up. Annie was his really good friend, but from a purely economical standpoint, that $60 was not worth it.

“What about Pierce?” Troy brings up.

 _Pierce?_ _That sounds like a disaster._

“Didn’t we almost get screwed over when we sold him our handshake? That was around when we helped Shirley birth her baby in the Anthro final. And he kind of also trapped Annie into taking money from him when she was about to get kicked out of living in Dildopolis,” Abed objects before trailing off on a tangent, “Now that I think about it, we probably should’ve picked up on her living problems earlier than we did, shouldn’t we?”

“Yeah…” Troy agrees sadly, before shaking his head and trying to sound upbeat again, “But Pierce is different now! He game me that Picture of LeVar Burton, and that Water Pik! And the certificate for a Drum Kit!”

“Hrmn… Part of me still feels like that Drum Kit gift was to slight me, but say we pretend that he actually did that out of the goodness of his old but gold heart… What plausibly legal thing would a 66-year-old White man need his Black and Arab friends to do for him that he wouldn’t be able to ask anyone else?” Abed questions his friend before pondering the freaky possibilities. Based on last night’s story, acquiring escorts, brandy and hubcaps were within the likely range of options.

“What about walking his secret dogs!?! He said he had some of those last night,” Troy exclaims excitedly, referring to the residents of the secret room in Hawthorne Manor that he was forbidden to go into.

“You mean special agent style? What kind of dogs are these?” Abed humors him. Pierce likely didn’t have secret dogs. If anything, it was likely just a cover for a room that not even Pierce wanted Troy to see.

“I don’t know. The invisible kind? Okay fine. Seriously though, what about just doing some odd jobs for him? I think he had suspicions about his maid stealing from him, so he fired her a couple weeks ago when I left.”

“Was this that old lady who spelled her name with a ‘Qu’? Something like Quaren? The one who called you rudely racist things and accused you of taking Pierce’s stuff?”

“Yep. The very same,” Troy smiled back, shaking his head, “Good times… Good times.”

“I still can’t believe you lived in a house with Pierce and he was only the second-most-racist person in that place.”

“Third most-Racist. His dad lives there too, but he travels. A lot. So luckily, I haven’t really seen him all that much. But there was this ONE time he came over and I had to wear a uniform. It was… pretty bad,” Troy shudders. Abed consoles him with a back pat, “Need a break?”

“Nah, I’m good… I don’t think Cornelius be there this weekend – Pierce is pretty scared of his dad and there’s no way he’d throw a party with him around.” Troy reasons.

“Cool. Maybe when we can ask him at the party, then. I still can’t believe that he invited us all over after that night,” Abed answers his friend, anticipating the conversation to wind down fairly quickly from here. _Seems like things are easing in to the resolution phase of the story. As far as things go, pretty low end-point, though. I wonder if there’ll be another twist._

“I’m pretty sure he just wanted to outdo the dean. That Halloween Spook-tacular party sucked butt so hard. In a bad way,” Troy confirms. _Doesn’t seem like Troy’s going to throw one out._

“Yeah. The school’s not turning out too good this year. I wonder where all the money went. Didn’t we just get a hundred thousand dollars last year?” _Should I?_

Troy shrugs. “More outfits for himself, maybe? I saw him last night trying to order a wedding dress and a devil costume over the phone.”

“If the odd jobs don’t work, maybe I could film some events for him? I’m sure having a film crew in his party would make his party feel ‘bigger’ than the Deans. Then maybe throw him a producer title?” Abed proposes.

“Dope. That totally works. We’re done now, yeah? You down to play for a bit?” Troy asks him, hinting at their meeting’s close. It was his last chance to throw out a twist. But after some careful consideration, Abed decides not to. Because all things considered, in his mind, the episode ‘Prerequisite to Modern Movement’ already completed its arc:

  * Annie confirming that she’d move in with them for plot development.
  * Their fight-but-not-fight over not hearing Troy’s opinions, which ended in character growth.
  * And a moment wherein that character growth allowed Abed to hear Troy’s proposal out, which ended up being a win for both of them in the end.



If they’d do any more things today, such as plotting out what they’d both do in Pierce’s house party, or him bringing up a potential revision of Troy’s doomsday Zombie plans to include Annie, it would just cut out content from future episodic escapades. So Abed, nodding along to his friend, proposes a wholesome way to end the meeting; the revisiting of the game that got the Dreamatorium, and hence, their 2-bedroom apartment leased in the first place, “Riverboat gamblers?”

“Riverboat gamblers,” Troy nods before pulling out a cigarette case, and offering one to Abed before taking a candy stick himself before the Dreamatorium transitions once more into a setting familiar to them both; a bayou infested with dinosaurs.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to allyjayrunaway, amrywiol, onemechanicalalligator, and wowsoboring for some OOC proofreading.
> 
> Come Join us on Discord.  
> https://discord.gg/RAGkfh
> 
> Next Update:  
> Pierce deals with his advanced Edible complex.


End file.
